Tears supplement our smiles! Their presence ne'er defiles The fountains of our gladness; They flow and cleanse and cure, Make sorrow's remnant pure, And check our moods of badness. Our tears are drops of power! They form the softening shower Which sprouts the seeds of heavenThe seeds implanted deep, For harvest soon to reap, In comfort angel-given. Tears beautify the face! Without one tender feeling! What frozen hearts were there! What risings of despair, In plights the blood congealing! The tearless grief inflames! It bleeds within, and maims The buoyant normal spirit. Ope wide the ducts! Let flow The stream of inward woe, Nor ever scorn or fear it! Give joyous thanks for tears, The counterparts of fears; They serve their own blest mission. Tears last but for their day, Our God shall wipe away All tears of sad contrition. IN SILENCE AND DARKNESS Total blindness is, perhaps, the saddest physical affliction that can befall a human being. Never to see the sunshine, the landscape, the water, the faces of friends, ah! this is terrible. Next in sadness to complete blindness is absolute deafness. Never to hear the voices of kindred, the song of birds, the murmur of the breeze, the ripple of the stream, ah! this is also terrible. But when these terrible afflictions are visited upon one person, what language can portray the pitiableness of the double calamity? In Helen Adams Keller the two afflictions unite. She was deprived of the power of vision and of hearing at the tender age of nineteen months. She has no recollection of ever looking upon an object or of hearing a human voice. Miss Keller was born at Tuscumbia, Ala., June 27, 1880, and first gained a sense of abstract ideas through the instruction of Miss Anna Mansfield Sullivan, now better known as Mrs. Macy, who still attends her as an indispensable companion. At the age of twenty, when she had well begun to think for herself, Miss Keller entered Radcliffe College, and, after a hard struggle with her disabilities, was graduated with honor as A. B. in 1904. The fact that she can now in public or private speak quite fluently, with a voice that carries quite a distance and in language easily understood, expressing original ideas with clearness and discussing current events intelligently, is, as it has well been called "a modern miracle," and nothing like it in all the history of education was ever before achieved. Miss Keller is a typical American girl, or would be if her sight and hearing were normal. She is above medium height, rather slender in person, with an expressive countenance and a warm, cheery manner. She does a great deal of literary and platform work, and has been widely heralded as "the best known woman in the world." A great future is before her. She has an indomitable will and unlimited energy, and she thinks and speaks for herself. She is quick in answering any questions that may suddenly be propounded to her, and her replies indicate mastery in thought and language. When applauded, she pauses for the sounds to subside, and she declares that she can hear applause with her feet, feeling the vibration of the floor, and also feeling the stir of air upon her face. She distinguishes the difference betwixt daylight and darkness by noticing that the light is warmer and makes her feel brighter, and that there are more odors in the air. She says that she can "taste" her food by smelling it, since the faculty of taste was destroyed with her sight and hearing. By feeling of the face and hands of a friend she can tell whether the individual is glad or sad, and sometimes can guess the subject of conversation. In her public addresses she often affirms that we are all bound together in this world; that we live by each other and for each other; and that we are dependent on each other for all the joy or sorrow we have. She particularly rejoices when in any way she can bring a ray of light to other souls. "Are there not those," she sometimes asks, "who look up at the stars without emotion?" Yet she will reply, "They shine in my thoughts forever, though as yet I have not caught their faintest gleam." Miss Keller is a hopeful soul, taking optimistic views of life, and uttering many thoughts calculated to cheer those around her. It is told that at a tea in Boston she took to task a novelist who had become pessimistic because his last book had fallen flat. "You say we have outgrown our illusions," she remarked, "but is not that the greatest illusion of all?" Few people who see and hear perfectly could formulate so apt and poetic an epigram. HELEN ADAMS KELLER Blind and deaf! And once was dumb! A world within; a world of heart; A mind with forceful thought endowed. Blind and deaf! O God! Is mercy dead with Thee? Thy creature Is human pity greater than divine? Hush, my soul! This maiden fair has life Where heaven ever touches earth. Where eyes And ears are both eclipsed By vision more exalted, and by melody That flows from an ethereal harp. Her heaven begins before her flesh can fail. Love her! Laud her! Mistress of the art Of mastery in life's divinest things! Any man who can, in forty-six years of life, immortalize his own name, and do it, too, with the pen, not the sword, must be a genius. Oliver Goldsmith, the talented Irishman, did this. Though poverty-stricken in youth and a spendthrift in manhood, his brilliant mind was, nevertheless, a passport to high circles. Possibly his own misfortunes tended to give him mastery. While yet a schoolboy he was stricken with small-pox, which so disfigured his face that he was obliged to abandon his youthful companionships and seek private tuition. This source of lifelong sadness did not daunt him, however; he had set out to win a place in the world, and win it he did. He traveled much, once starting for America, but he missed his ship and returned home penniless. |